


As We Are

by Draycevixen



Series: The Ache for Home [2]
Category: The Professionals
Genre: Jealousy, Kid Fic, Loneliness, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-03
Updated: 2011-04-03
Packaged: 2017-10-17 12:00:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/176645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Draycevixen/pseuds/Draycevixen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Doyle wasn’t in the habit of forgetting his mistakes.</p><p>Sequel to <i>The Ache for Home.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	As We Are

**Author's Note:**

  * For [birggitt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/birggitt/gifts).



.

“I saw Deborah Kirk yesterday. You remember her, right Ray? Small redhead, large assets?”

He couldn’t even remember the joke he’d made in response but Anson had been laughing as he’d said his goodbyes. Of course he remembered Deborah Kirk. He wasn’t in the habit of forgetting his mistakes.

***

On the few occasions he’d allowed himself the luxury of thinking of something beyond friendship with Bodie he’d imagined cataclysmic sex brought on by a passion no longer able to contain itself, probably resulting in both of them unable to sit down properly for a week. That wasn’t how it had happened at all.

 

Bodie had simply had a nightmare. He’d shared enough bedrooms with him to know to let sleeping Bodies lie, that to wake him was to make him remember it and there were things in Bodie’s past best not remembered. But this, this was different, Bodie’s hoarse yells making it clear that in his nightmare MayLi had succeeded in killing Ray. He’d been standing in the doorway to Bodie’s room, trying to decide what to do when Bodie had sat bolt upright, staring at Ray like he was seeing a ghost. He’d clambered awkwardly on to the bed and wrapped Bodie in his arms before he’d even realized that he’d moved. And that had been that, even if for the next two weeks his still battered body meant they didn’t do anything much beyond kissing; it hadn’t mattered, they’d known they had all the time in the world.

Things had still been so achingly new between them when Bodie’s sister had died unexpectedly leaving Bodie as his young nephew’s guardian. They’d already had so much stacked against them, their jobs, Cowley, the times they lived in, but he’d been prepared to fight it all to have a life with Bodie. He knew Bodie half expected him to be angry and yes, he’d wanted to rail against the injustice of it all but he was never angry with Bodie. The same loyalty that had saved Ray’s life countless times would break Bodie if he were forced to choose, even assuming that there had ever really been a choice. The needs of an orphaned six year old trumped the needs of a grown man.

 

Bodie had needed to spend a lot of time with Keith. After resigning from CI5, Bodie had to work hard at familiarizing himself with a new job while setting up a new kid friendly flat and getting Keith settled in to a new school. He had helped as much as he could and luckily Keith had taken to Bodie immediately. He smiled at the memory of how chuffed Bodie had been about that, laughing for the first time in a couple of weeks when he’d pointed out that it was because the pair of them were still mentally six years old.

No, the last thing Bodie had needed to deal with was his feelings of insecurity and loneliness. Not that he’d been able to admit any of that even to himself at the time and certainly not to Bodie. He’d half hoped that Bodie would ask him to resign from CI5 so that they might still work together. When Bodie didn’t ask he’d thrown all of his energy in to getting back in to shape to face Macklin.

He’d made it past Macklin and back in to the A squad in almost half the time his doctors had predicted. He’d celebrated it quietly with a few cans of lager drunk while seated alone, for the most part, on Bodie’s couch, as Bodie had dozed by Keith’s bed, the boy still plagued by nightmares since his parents’ death.

He’d been prepared to be a little lonely, with Keith now a part of their lives he couldn’t bank on spending time with Bodie, but what he hadn’t been prepared for was how lonely the job was. In CI5, he’d always had Bodie right there beside him, even when they’d only been partners and friends. He shook his head at the memory. No, that wasn’t right either. They’d never been _only_ partners and friends and it had taken the return to CI5 to remind him of that. Cowley teamed him with Jax, Anson and then Murphy, finally settling on partnering him permanently with Anson. It had worked well but he’d had to adjust to the fact that Anson wasn’t attuned to him the way that Bodie had been; Anson could respond quickly to Doyle’s moves but not anticipate them.

 

Keith had been eight when it had all gone badly wrong. He and Anson had been sent on a long assignment to Manchester. An estimated month long obbo had turned in to three months. He’d tried to ring Bodie a few times when the obbo allowed, mostly without success. The couple of times he’d actually got Bodie on the phone hadn’t been great either. Once, Keith had been sick and Bodie had had to hang up fast and the other time Bodie had been on the way out of the house to take Keith to his school play and couldn’t linger. He’d known Bodie missed him, could hear the longing in Bodie’s voice even in the few words they’d managed to exchange, but he couldn’t stop the resentment that was building up inside him. Bodie at least had the distraction of raising Keith, of having someone around all the time who needed him.

Then, due to a sudden development in the obbo, Cowley had sent Deborah Kirk, new to the A squad, to Manchester. Deborah had looked at him the way Bodie used to look at him and he’d enjoyed her flirting, the way she leaned in to him far more closely than was strictly necessary. When they’d finally made it back to London she’d lingered after Cowley had dismissed them with a ‘job well done’ and a weekend off to slip her telephone number in to Ray’s hand, her fingers lingering, as she offered to cook him dinner.

He’d been flattered by her attention but his attention was completely focused on seeing Bodie as soon as possible. He’d called Bodie’s office from HQ and been thrilled to hear that Keith was going on an overnight camping trip with the Cubs. What with Deborah’s flirting and the excitement he could hear in Bodie’s voice, he’d left HQ feeling pretty full of himself.

That feeling had lasted through his shave, shower and right up until he’d just finished pouring himself in to the old worn jeans he knew Bodie loved on him. He’d been turning for his t-shirt, thinking about how long the jeans would actually manage to stay on, when his phone had rung. It had been Bodie, cancelling their plans. One of the other dads had got sick and as the Cub Scout leader knew that Bodie had been in the army he’d asked him to go with them else the trip would have had to been cancelled. The long silence on the phone as he’d fought to control his temper had finally been broken by Bodie, apologizing again for having to cancel, telling him that they’d be back late on Saturday afternoon and that he hoped Ray might come over then. His response had not been one of his more stellar moments, featuring allusions to Bodie’s biologically impossible parentage, a detailed description of Deborah Kirk’s assets and a highly embroidered description of her dinner offer before he’d hung up the phone hard enough to crack the plastic.

By the time he’d rung Deborah to accept her invitation and driven over to her flat he’d convinced himself that it would be better for everyone this way. With him out of the picture it would be easy for Bodie to find a nice woman to marry who’d be good with Keith and perhaps even give him a little brother or sister. It was lucky that steering wheels didn’t crack as easily as phones did.

It had been a disaster. Well, the dinner had been great and initially when Deborah had helped herself to his lap, straddling him as he sat in a kitchen chair, he’d been turned on by her self-confidence, the sweet smell of her long red hair and the swell of her breasts against his chest. And then she’d kissed him. _Nothing_. Then he’d kissed her, just to be sure. _Still nothing_. Well, not exactly nothing, if he were being honest, but nothing he’d wanted to pursue. He hadn’t kissed anyone but Bodie in almost three years, didn’t want to kiss anyone but Bodie and was suddenly very clear about the only thing he did want to pursue. He’d apologized to Deborah, said he’d got a little carried away, but thought it better not to get involved with a colleague. He’d been on his way home ten minutes later, the temperature in Deborah’s flat decidedly colder than when he’d arrived.

 

The next day he’d been careful to arrive at Bodie’s flat before they were due home from the camping trip. He’d gone to the supermarket beforehand thinking that Bodie couldn’t just throw him out like he should after their phone conversation if Keith were there and he offered to make the three of them dinner. The rest of his plan involved grovelling, lots and lots of grovelling.

Bodie had arrived home just after 6:00pm, _alone_.

“Where’s Keith?”

“At his mate’s house for the night.” Bodie had gone to rummage in the fridge for a beer, handing one to Ray as well, without asking. “I’m surprised to see you, Ray. The way you were talking I thought your redhead would still have you tied to the bed.”

“I couldn’t do it.”

Bodie had let his eyes drop meaningfully to Ray’s crotch before looking up. “Couldn’t?”

He’d put his beer down and stepped forward, closing the space between them, putting his hand on Bodie’s arm. Bodie hadn’t reacted but he hadn’t shrugged his hand off either and right then, he’d wanted to take that as a good sign.

“I wouldn’t... didn’t want to. Well, I did kiss her” He’d felt the muscles of Bodie’s arm tense under his hand “but that was it. Just made me see how stupid I was being. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again. I know I’m going to have to grovel a lot more but I want you to know I’m sorry. I was just feeling frustrated and lonely and behaved like a stupid git.”

Bodie had put down his beer and raised his hand to cup Ray’s cheek. “You’ve been in Manchester for three months with the squad and when I haven’t been at work I’ve been here, with Keith, a limited conversationalist at best who goes to bed by 9:00pm.” He had slid his hand to the back of Ray’s neck and pulled him forward. “Let me show you just how lonely _I’ve_ been, you stupid git.”

It had been midnight before they’d even made it as far as Bodie’s bed by which time he’d become convinced of three things: Bodie had been very, very lonely indeed; men in their mid-thirties could still be remarkably flexible; it would take plastic surgery to remove the permanently etched smile from his face.

 

As Keith had got older things had got easier and they’d been able to spend more time together. Yeah, Bodie often had to leave to bail Keith out of one scrape or another and Ray’s work had often kept him out of touch for weeks at a time but they had coped and although they hadn’t discussed it he’d assumed they had a future together. Or at least he had assumed that until he’d told Bodie he was going to retire from CI5 and Bodie’s response had been silence. Keith was sixteen. He’d expected Bodie to ask him to move in with them but apparently Bodie was happy with the way things were. With Cowley as a reference, he was offered a good job with a London security firm and a great job with a firm in Glasgow. When he had asked Bodie’s opinion all he’d got was a shrug, some mumbling about Glasgow not being that far away and that he should do as he wanted. That had been enough of an answer for Ray.

 

He’d been typing his acceptance letter to the firm in Glasgow when Keith had stopped by his flat to return some albums; the music of his misspent youth had become fashionable again. When he’d returned from the kitchen with two mugs of tea he’d found Keith reading the letter.

“You’re not really going to take this job are you, Uncle Ray?” Keith dangled the letter from between his fingers like it might bite him.

“Don’t worry, Keith. It’s not really that far away, we’ll stay in touch. If your dad says it’s all right you could come and visit. I think you’d like Glasgow.”

“But why? Dad said you’d been offered a job here.”

“It’s complicated.”

“That’s just adult for ‘you’re too young to understand.’ Well, I’m sixteen I’m not a stupid kid. Dad needs you.”

“No, not badly enough.”

“What makes you think—”

“I asked his advice about the jobs. He didn’t have anything to say.”

Doyle saw Keith’s brow furrow as he concentrated, the same way it had ever since he was a little kid.

“That stupid bloody pillock—”

“Oi, that’s your dad you’re talking about.”

“Doesn’t make him any less of a pillock.” Keith started pulling his jacket back on. “Look, promise me you’ll wait a couple of days before you send this letter. Give him a chance, right?”

He’d agreed, mostly to humour Keith and he still didn’t know what Keith had done exactly, only that Bodie had showed up at his flat that same night, asking him to take the London job and move in with them.

 

***

 

That had been twenty years ago. He straightened up the papers on the desk from their latest consulting job, made a note to call Anson back with more details about the alarm installations, and left their study looking for Bodie. He found him in the kitchen, watching their grandsons engaged in a snowball fight.

“Penny for your thoughts.” His arms slipped around Bodie’s waist, staring over his shoulder.

“That our Danny needs to learn to keep his guard up.”

As he laughed, Bodie leaned back in to him and he knew again, that he was home.

 

.


End file.
